Beltaine is one of my many favourite times of year – everything is new green, blossom in the trees, flowery smells everywhere, and when it rains, dammit it muthafuckin rains.

I’m not much of a planner really. I always get taken by surprise by festivals, and if I plan something big, I usually won’t get round to it. I like integrating the divine into my everyday life, with lots of little things to celebrate Her presence. So here is a list of last minute, simple and sane ways to celebrate Beltaine!

Ten simple ways to celebrate Beltaine!

1 – Wake up to watch the dawn, and say Hello to summer, the faeries, and the Goddess.

Or, just get up an extra five minutes early and spend five minutes outside in the garden/at the bus stop just chillin’ and bein’ with nature before you trot off to work. Let’s get real – who has time to wake up to see the dawn on a Tuesday?

2 – Make an offering.

Simple as pie: take time to get a little something special from your fridge and set it outside with knowledge and reverence for Goddess. Or for the fae. Beltaine is a hmuge deal in faerieland, so it’s a smart idea to connect and make some traditional offerings – milk, honey, fruit, flowers, even beer.

3 – Have a self-love bath.

Beltaine is the festival of love, and thus of self-love to, so an awesome way to celebrate is to have a self love bath. Go for  a walk and collect some beautiful blossoms (apple blossom is my favourite), or buy some lovely roses. Run your bath, scatter it with rose petals and sweet-smelling oils (lavender is always a winner), and spend 20 minutes or so gently breathing in the awesome power of the Beltaine goddesses of love. (If you like, you can pick a specific love goddess to work with. I like Rhiannon, because I feel self-love and independence always comes first for her). Get sensual and lather yourself up with some sexy body lotion afterwards, giving thanks for your awesome body that does stuff for you and thinking about how gorgeous you are.

4 – Go for a Nature Walk.

Or even go for two – one in the daytime to see the glory of the season, and one at dusk to connect with and look for the fae and the life within all the plants and animals around you. Dusk is magical, and as a tween time it’s a great time to cross into the other worlds and experience something out of the ordinary.

5 – Make Goddess Art

This is my standard honouring ritual at the moment. Crate a beautiful artwork depicting the Beltaine Goddess –  it doesn’t have to be perfect and professional at all. You can collage flowers, draw goddess symbols, doodle bird pictures, or just create a big happy glittery mess. It’s all good. Light a candle in honour of the divine as you do so.

6 – Make it a priority to do all those witchy things you wish you did daily.

We all wish we were super witches, but often, we are just forgetful people who have so many priorities that spirituality ends up last. Sabbats are a great day to shake it up, creating a day between the worlds where witchiness comes first. So, for one day, make it a priority to do all those daily witchy things: really commit to your morning devotion/prayers, empower your meals, make time to meditate, go outside for lots of mini-nature breaks during the day, remind yourself to call on your deities for help and protection, make offerings, energy cleanse your house as you do the washing up, cast super simple spells interwoven with your day-to-day practice – whatever your vision of You as an Ideal Witch is, make it come true, just for one day. 

7 – Switch Off

Make it a day without the computer, or the TV, or the iPhone, or the Crackberry. Switch off, and do something else. There is nothing less magical than an evening in on the internet, and nothing more unusual than an evening without technology. Free yourself!

8 – Recreate your Altar.

Your Beltaine Ritual could be as simple as meditatively re-creating your altar to honour the goddess/god/season at Beltaine. In the Avalon tradition that I follow, Beltaine is the time of Nolava the lover, the goddess of love, so perhaps creating an altar to the Goddess of Love could be your ritual.

9 – Free yourself of guilt.

Honour yourself today – have a day without Shoulds, without any negative back-chat from your brain. My mind likes to berate me and make me feel guilty that I never being productive enough for its liking. Sabbats are days where we get back in touch with nature and out of touch with this absolutely insane, future-driven productivity-obsessed miserable-making human world we live in, where nothing is ever enough. It’s enough just to be, and relax, and live without the self-hate and guilt. Whenever I go outside (usually after spending all day stressed inside) I am reminded that all the stupid human stuff doesn’t matter, and that everything, right now, in this moment, in this second, is OK. That’s the essence of nature spirituality to me – getting back in touch with real life, which is lived by experiencing every moment, rather than in the crazy human racing life where we are always worried about something. Use the Sabbat as a way to live in the now, to slow down, and really allow yourself to chill out and enjoy yourself, just for one day.

10 – Have some sexy times!

You didn’t think I’d miss this one, did you?! It can be a solo show or a team effort, but whichever way spend some loving time getting down and dirty at the sexiest Sabbat of the year.

Have an amazing Beltaine, whatever you plan to do!